LIVE IT CASE STUDY
SKATE MANCHESTER
Skate Manchester is one of the UK’s most popular seasonal attractions, transforming Cathedral Gardens into a spectacular outdoor ice rink each winter. The event required a fully integrated partner to manage its complex ticketing, marketing, and customer service operations, ensuring a seamless experience for over 70,000 visitors.
Faced with the challenge of balancing a large-scale commercial event with deep community engagement, Skate Manchester partnered with LIVE IT to deliver a unified solution. LIVE IT implemented a flexible ticketing platform, a multi-channel customer service model, and a community-led marketing strategy that drove exceptional results. The partnership led to a record-breaking season, with a 17.4x marketing ROI, a 4.9-star Google Review rating, and a community programme that welcomed thousands of local residents.
case study
Skate Manchester is a landmark event in the city’s festive calendar, known for its stunning Cathedral Gardens location and its role as a central hub for winter celebrations. Welcoming families, students, and community groups, the event combines a traditional ice-skating experience with a vibrant atmosphere, making it a must-visit destination for both residents and tourists during the Christmas period.
Challenge: Balancing Commercial Scale with Community Access
Skate Manchester’s primary challenge was to operate as a commercially successful major attraction while remaining deeply accessible to the entire community. The event needed a system that could handle complex ticketing for diverse audiences, including schools, community groups, and partnership offers, without creating operational friction. Furthermore, the customer service and marketing functions needed to be fully integrated to provide a consistent, high-quality experience and drive strong, measurable results.
Solution: An Integrated Model for Ticketing, Marketing, and Customer Service
LIVE IT delivered a fully integrated solution that managed all three core functions as a single, coordinated operation. This holistic approach ensured that campaign strategy, booking journeys, and customer communications were seamlessly aligned, creating a powerful and efficient system for growth.
Solution 1: Flexible & Accessible Ticketing
LIVE IT deployed a powerful and highly flexible ticketing platform purpose-built to simplify a genuinely complex event operation. Skate Manchester ran multiple concurrent ticket types, pricing tiers, and eligibility-based offers simultaneously, including separate school and community booking pages, each with its own capacity controls, booking rules, and access conditions. All of this was delivered without operational conflict, through LIVE IT’s configurable technology.
A key strength of the platform was its ability to manage a large network of partnerships and group bookings at scale. Each of the 24+ corporate and community partners was issued unique access codes linked to defined dates, sessions, and customer criteria, fully automated within the system to eliminate manual administration. Automated discounts were applied at the point of booking based on group size, eligibility, or partner code, removing the need for manual intervention and ensuring consistent, transparent access across every collaboration. Real-time sales monitoring and financial reporting gave the organising team clear visibility across all channels, turning ticketing into a strategic planning tool rather than a purely transactional system.
A key innovation was the integration with Nimbus Disability’s Access Card, which streamlined the experience for disabled visitors and set a new standard for accessibility at seasonal events.
Organisers and stakeholders had tailored, real-time visibility of ticket sales and performance data through custom Looker Studio dashboards and LIVE IT’s promoter portals, with bespoke access rules ensuring each party saw exactly the information relevant to them.
Solution 2: Integrated Marketing & Partnerships
LIVE IT delivered a full-funnel marketing strategy in partnership with Carousel PR and Arragon Digital. The campaign combined paid digital (Google & Social), PR, influencer marketing, and OOH advertising, achieving a 17.4x return on investment. The campaign was also built around a community-first ethos, using off-peak programming and targeted pricing as both an access tool and a marketing driver. This was amplified by a network of strategic partnerships, including a headline sponsorship with Octopus Energy that provided over 2000 complimentary community sessions and a wind turbine to partially power the rink; something that generated huge media interest and made Skate Manchester one of the most sustainable ice rinks in the UK.
Solution 3: Responsive & Proactive Customer Service
A multi-channel customer service model was implemented across email, phone, and an AI-powered chatbot, ensuring visitors received fast and reliable support. The team maintained an average response time of just 90 minutes and a 100% resolution rate. This proactive approach, combined with real-time sentiment monitoring, resulted in a 4.9-star Google Review rating from over 2,000 reviews, making Skate Manchester one of the UK’s highest-rated ice rinks.
Results
The integrated approach delivered by LIVE IT produced exceptional results across all areas, establishing a new benchmark for seasonal attractions in the UK.
◆ Seamless Delivery Across a Complex Ticketing Operation: thens of thousands partner codes, multiple concurrent pricing tiers, and eligibility-based offers all ran simultaneously, fully automated, conflict-free, and without a single instance of manual administration.
◆ Operational Excellence: The customer service team maintained a 90-minute average response time and a 100% resolution rate throughout the season.
◆ Exceptional ROI: The marketing campaign delivered an outstanding 17.4x return on investment.
◆ Outstanding Customer Satisfaction: The event achieved a 4.9-star Google Review rating from over 2,000 reviews, making it one of the highest-rated ice rinks in the UK.
◆ Deep Community Engagement: The event welcomed thousands of skaters from community groups and engaged with over 70 local organisations.
◆ Widespread Marketing Reach: The marketing and PR campaign reached a combined audience of over 742 million people.
